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Whats wild about affordable housing in Canada is that for every newly built unit we lose 15. Yet almost nobody is talking about that part. You cant build your w

Whats wild about affordable housing in Canada is that for every newly built unit we lose 15. Yet almost nobody is talking about that part. You cant build your way out of the problem before you plug the leak. But there are obvious misaligned incentives to do that. The value system of our economy and culture seems to be obsessed with making basic needs a profit center, at all costs, regardless of the consequence.

djbusby 4y ago
Where do the 15 go? Destroyed?
- csande17 4y ago
  I'm not the original commentor, but I tracked this claim back to the reporting of a paper by Steve Pomeroy, who tracked the number of housing units with rent under $750 CAD a month between 2011 and 2016. So I expect the answer to your question to be "they are still available, but at a rent higher than $750".
- cafer2004 4y ago
  They get bought by investment firms and such, then flipped for profits. We have a real issue since the federal funding of affordable housing got cut by the federal government many years ago. Thus current owners/landlords are having issues keeping the prices affordable, then when they can't sustain the building anymore, they end up having to sell, and agencies with lots of money gets to scoop them up. So we are losing 15 affordable housing units for each one we build to real estates sharks.
nostromo 4y ago
I’m not attacking you, your heart is in the right place, but your comment illustrates the problem. Housing absolutely should be a profit center. Home and multifamily builders should be unleashed to build as much housing as they can. Let them be greedy; let them get rich. It’ll make housing more affordable for everyone. High housing costs aren’t a failure of the free market - they’re a failure of central planning at every level of government.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  The problem with encouraging builders to go hard with few restrictions is you end up with a low-density urban sprawl that introduces a ton of its own issues. You end up with massively long commutes and a ton of infrastructure that now needs to be maintained, and none of that cost falls on the builder so they happily build fields of new homes miles away from work places or services.
  - fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
    In Canada, exclusionary zoning rules prohibited the construction of mid-rise housing in most cities. Developers would build it if the system wasn’t set up to stop them from doing so. They want to sell more units of housing per acre of land.
    - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
      As I asked another user - so you belief that the suburban sprawl would be high density housing instead? We'd have giant apartment buildings on the edge of the city?
      - ZoomerCretin 4y ago
        > We'd have giant apartment buildings on the edge of the city? Not necessarily high rises, but certainly apartment buildings, yes. This is the development pattern you see in places like Austin, Texas.
        db48x 4y ago
        Yes, you see that in a lot of places. The city zoning laws mandate single–family homes, but then you get to the city boundary and revert to the county rules and a bunch of apartment complexes suddenly appear as if by magic.
      - jeromegv 4y ago
        No, they would be in the center of the city where it is currently illegal to do it. Listen to this recent podcast from 99% invisible (or read the summary), it explains it very well. Most of the territory of Toronto excludes apartment buildings. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-missing-middle/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-missing-middle/
ajmurmann 4y ago
How do these 15 units get destroyed/lost?
- mumblemumble 4y ago
  If it's anything like what's happening in Chicago, what happens is a mix of existing multi-unit buildings being torn down and replaced with single-family homes or 2-3 unit luxury condos, and whole swaths of existing 2- and 3-flat buildings comprising maybe 15 or 20 affordable units being torn down to make room for apartment/condo developments with 20 luxury apartments, but only two of them designated as affordable housing.
incomingpain 4y ago
OP is flagged so I haven't read that. The thing about Canada is that we have basically pushed all our industry and manufacturing out of the country. To get EV cars built in Ontario we basically had to pay significant money to bring them here. Which is the opposite of what government should be doing. You want to collect $ not give $ to corporations. So what we have left is oil industry, the government is actively trying to destroy, and real estate. The government's actions are all about keeping housing from blowing up and that means less and less supply, more and more demand by mass immigration, and meddling with regulations that will certainly make the situation worse. So if you think the housing market is bad, the government is not your friend.

djbusby 4y ago

Where do the 15 go? Destroyed?

csande17 4y ago
I'm not the original commentor, but I tracked this claim back to the reporting of a paper by Steve Pomeroy, who tracked the number of housing units with rent under $750 CAD a month between 2011 and 2016. So I expect the answer to your question to be "they are still available, but at a rent higher than $750".
cafer2004 4y ago
They get bought by investment firms and such, then flipped for profits. We have a real issue since the federal funding of affordable housing got cut by the federal government many years ago. Thus current owners/landlords are having issues keeping the prices affordable, then when they can't sustain the building anymore, they end up having to sell, and agencies with lots of money gets to scoop them up. So we are losing 15 affordable housing units for each one we build to real estates sharks.

nostromo 4y ago

I’m not attacking you, your heart is in the right place, but your comment illustrates the problem. Housing absolutely should be a profit center. Home and multifamily builders should be unleashed to build as much housing as they can. Let them be greedy; let them get rich. It’ll make housing more affordable for everyone. High housing costs aren’t a failure of the free market - they’re a failure of central planning at every level of government.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
The problem with encouraging builders to go hard with few restrictions is you end up with a low-density urban sprawl that introduces a ton of its own issues. You end up with massively long commutes and a ton of infrastructure that now needs to be maintained, and none of that cost falls on the builder so they happily build fields of new homes miles away from work places or services.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
  In Canada, exclusionary zoning rules prohibited the construction of mid-rise housing in most cities. Developers would build it if the system wasn’t set up to stop them from doing so. They want to sell more units of housing per acre of land.
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    As I asked another user - so you belief that the suburban sprawl would be high density housing instead? We'd have giant apartment buildings on the edge of the city?
    - ZoomerCretin 4y ago
      > We'd have giant apartment buildings on the edge of the city? Not necessarily high rises, but certainly apartment buildings, yes. This is the development pattern you see in places like Austin, Texas.
      - db48x 4y ago
        Yes, you see that in a lot of places. The city zoning laws mandate single–family homes, but then you get to the city boundary and revert to the county rules and a bunch of apartment complexes suddenly appear as if by magic.
    - jeromegv 4y ago
      No, they would be in the center of the city where it is currently illegal to do it. Listen to this recent podcast from 99% invisible (or read the summary), it explains it very well. Most of the territory of Toronto excludes apartment buildings. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-missing-middle/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-missing-middle/

ajmurmann 4y ago

How do these 15 units get destroyed/lost?

mumblemumble 4y ago
If it's anything like what's happening in Chicago, what happens is a mix of existing multi-unit buildings being torn down and replaced with single-family homes or 2-3 unit luxury condos, and whole swaths of existing 2- and 3-flat buildings comprising maybe 15 or 20 affordable units being torn down to make room for apartment/condo developments with 20 luxury apartments, but only two of them designated as affordable housing.

incomingpain 4y ago

OP is flagged so I haven't read that. The thing about Canada is that we have basically pushed all our industry and manufacturing out of the country. To get EV cars built in Ontario we basically had to pay significant money to bring them here. Which is the opposite of what government should be doing. You want to collect $ not give $ to corporations. So what we have left is oil industry, the government is actively trying to destroy, and real estate. The government's actions are all about keeping housing from blowing up and that means less and less supply, more and more demand by mass immigration, and meddling with regulations that will certainly make the situation worse. So if you think the housing market is bad, the government is not your friend.